The Fears We May Be Facing on This 19th Sunday after Pentecost

For this 19th Sunday after Pentecost, let's simply address any fears we may face.

Anyone who has experience fear of any kind (and who hasn't?), knows its impact. It can range from a temporary shudder to a virtually permanent state of "shut-down." Having experienced enough fear, and having seen fear wreak havoc with friends and loved ones, dealing with it has always been a challenge.

We Catholics know and somewhat understand that ultimately our fate is in God's Hands. We know that we ought to totally trust in Him. We know that no matter what comes up our way, He will be there for us.

But the thing is, we don't always know or understand His ways. The only thing we do know is that God's way is not our way - which can leave the door open to fear's terrible bite. 

As for any solution to this, it's not a quick fix. It's more something we work on for, let's say, years, if not a lifetime. Of course, there are exceptions. One or two of us may get it right away and simply turn the keys of our emotional and spiritual lives over to Our Heavenly Father with the promise that we'll always do our best, and leave the rest to Him. 

But most of us, I suspect, will have a longer, possibly more emotionally fraught road to travel. And in that light, we'll turn to the final installation of this little series of spiritual counsels from Father Gerald Vann. He's helped in recent Sundays, and will do so again today. 

“Though I should walk in the valley of darkness, yet will I fear no evil: for Thou art with me. There are times when, even though normally speaking we have achieved some measure of the sense of God’s presence, He seems very remote from us; we seem to be out alone in the dark. It is then above all that we need to have trained ourselves to think of events in terms of His will, and to love and accept that will whatever may fall out. And in times like these in which we live, how much we need that loving awareness of His watchfulness: we can see only the evil, the suffering, the despair, of the world, and it is hard to believe that out of all that evil any good can come; it is hard not to doubt, hard to trust. But that is just the value of these small and personal beginnings. To be accustomed to see the hand of God, the loving hand of God, in all the small events of one’s own life, and therefore to go out to meet them, to accept them gladly, or at least with loving determination, because they are God’s will: that is the way to prepare to meet the great things in the same spirit and so to find confidence and peace and happiness in spite of all that can come to disturb and upset us…The Lord is our Shepherd: whom shall we fear?”

Doesn't Father capture the ups and downs of our spiritual life here? We know we should trust. But, depending on the severity of our trouble, we're thrown off our discipline. So we have to work on seeing the loving hand of God in everything, all the time. 

This can be pretty simple and straightforward. Everything means everything. So, for example, I wake up this morning and want to stay in bed; the day before I leaped out of bed to greet the day. The difference? Well, we could analyze this and conclude that we slept better the night before. But what if we didn't? Sure, we could drill down even more. But in the end, the fact is, this was God's handiwork. 

Ditto for the weather. Ditto for the behavior of our loved ones when they're suffering and we don't know how to help them. Ditto for those who rub us the wrong way - let's say at work - who seem to have it in for us more than usual on a given day. And how about this: The internet is down in the middle of an important project we're working on, or the software we're using crashes and won't come back to life, etc., etc., etc.

Even the fly that got into the house and keeps buzzing us to our great distraction. God somehow orchestrated it all.

And by constantly reminding ourselves of this, we develop an enhanced ability to accept his handiwork in particularly difficult fixes where we find it hard to understand how and why He would visit such difficulty, temptation or suffering on us.

It's just His way. And ultimately, we must trust that His Plan required this and that somehow some good will emerge - someday.

None of this is easy. But we can work on it - the smaller the thing, the better to develop the habit.

Hope this helps any fears we may be facing on this blessed 19th Sunday after Pentecost.

Happy Sunday!